Director of smiles, a photographer readies relatives and friends for a wedding portrait in St.
Jean-Pied-de-Port, France. After the church service, the bride and groom traditionally walk to the
cemetery where they will one day lie side by side-an acknowledgment of the lifelong bonds of
to know many parts of it. We knew the life of
the seacoast and the thundering fury of Atlan
tic tempests on the Bay of Biscay (pages 262
3). We tasted the springtime melancholy of
San Sebastian, with its shaded boulevards,
and the gracious hospitality of fine Basque
houses in Bilbao.
There we saw the clash of transition from
old to new that is affecting so many parts of
Spain. An industrial boom has rocked this
port capital of the Basque Province of Vizcaya
to its foundations.
As we approached the town, the sound of
roaring trucks and blaring horns mingled in
congruously with the clip-clop of a little burro
laden with baskets of provisions for some out
lying farm. A man with a scythe on his shoul
252
der stood outlined against a backdrop of
towering smokestacks. A gray haze of cinders
settled slowly over a field where men in berets
and women in black head-scarves worked the
ground with crude hoes.
Yet Bilbao is fighting to preserve its old
grace and Basque pride of city.
We toured the thriving shipyards with Don
Castor Uriarte, a venerable architect whose
family is one of the oldest of the province. I
asked him about the overcrowding and slum
problems that go with any great influx of fac
tory workers. He replied firmly:
"The vizcainos have always taken care of
their own. There were neither slums nor pov
erty in Vizcaya before, and there will not be
any in the future."